Child Porn Sentence Stays Despite Judge’s ‘Baseball Bat’ Comment

An Ohio man saw his 35-year child pornography sentence upheld Thursday when the Sixth Circuit ruled it wasn’t reversible error for the trial judge to say that he would “want just five minutes alone” with the defendant and “a baseball bat” if the man had molested one of the judge’s family members.

William Robert Collins was convicted after admitting that he had filmed himself molesting two young children and disseminated the videos on the mobile app LiveMe. Authorities who seized two of his phones found more than 10,000 illegal images and videos, the court noted.

During the sentencing hearing, the ...